


Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

by freakofgeeks



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Episodes of Psychosis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6320353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freakofgeeks/pseuds/freakofgeeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introspection. Hawkeye wonders what has happened to Korea, what has the US really done to it in their presence. What has happened to Korea? In turn, what has happened to Hawkeye? *POST "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen"*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing about a war I was never in, that took place in a country I've never been to. This is a story written to comply with M*A*S*H. If anyone is reading this and is truly offended for personal reasons, I'm sorry.
> 
> POST "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen"
> 
> Inspired by the song, "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" The particular version I listen to is by The Kingston Trio.

Korea was actually beautiful. The countryside was normally gorgeous, with bright blue skies and grassy hills full of yellow wildflowers. Hawkeye supposed that it was easier to see this before the war began. Before the hills were bombed, before skies were black with the smoke of a hundred explosions in every sector. He didn't truly hate Korea, he hated being brought here against his will. The people were usually very nice, and most of the locals, the every day people, didn't like the war anymore than he did.  
  
He knew, though, that the war would never leave this country. That it would never be the beautiful that it was before they came. The UN, that was. Artillery shells littered the ground, there were pieces of old military scrip floating around, and of course, there were the biggest bombs of all left by the army; the ones that took nine months to go off.  
  
Hawkeye had gone on a housecall to the village past Rosie's bar, per the request of Radar who had shoddily translated the cries of a young boy that had run into their camp. Something about "father" and "pain" was enough to get him going. The captain had nearly lost his head- and his lunch- when he saw a small baby, maybe a year old, sitting in a crate labeled "MUNITIONS U.S ARMY" as if it was a play pen from Sears. It was then he knew that the war would never leave this country.  
  
The hills that might have once been the highest had been bombed away. The farms that might have once provided for an entire village had been leveled in an afternoon, with many injured, to boot. Young Korean mothers would wonder why the man they never quite understood left, and why he left his child, and would he really write?  
  
Hawkeye wondered where all of it had gone, and he mourned for the loss of seeing Korea for what it could have been, and of his own accord. He might have loved Korea if he had been stationed in Tokyo, like Charles had. Korea might have loved him more, if the people wearing his uniform weren't tearing it up.  
  
Colonel Potter had taken to painting landscapes lately, barking orders at Klinger to go take that dress off or so help him he would tell the corporal where he could shove that unsigned section 8. Colonel Potter had also taken to complaining jovially that he was running out of brown paint, because that was all he used. How he wanted them to see the garden Mildred had back home, with all the flowers, and how she doted on them. They were beautiful.    
  
Hawkeye had wondered that, too. Where had the flowers gone? Where have all the flowers gone, dammit? He'd taken to screaming this at BJ and whoever would listen, that somehow, the US Army had stolen all the flowers in Korea and traded them for bullets, the seeds that only kill. Hawkeye was losing his mind, but he diverted by saying that Korea had lost its flowers, its color, its everything.  
  
Where had all the flowers gone? The maybe they were back in Crabapple Cove. Maybe that's what they traded to get him here. That's it, he decided.  
  
"BJ, I'm giving Korea its flowers back." Hawkeye said resolutely, "I'm going home, and the flowers will come back."  
  
"Sir, how many times do I have to tell you? I'm Sergeant Buckley. BJ isn't here. He won't be." Replied the MP  
  
Hawkeye banged his head into the padding of the wall, olive drab as it was, "If you don't get him back here, I'll have to take post-op until he gets here, and I need to get back home!"  
  
"Sir, you don't need to do any post-op duty. You'll be off-duty for a while."  
  
"Sure, right. Colonel Potter will have me for that. I wish this war would go off duty."  
  
"Sir, how many times do I have to tell you, the war ended three years ago."  
  
Wherever the flowers had gone, Hawkeye's mind had gone as well. The no-longer Captain had been at William Beaumont's psych ward as long as the war had been over.


End file.
